1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to a game machine display testing apparatus. In particular, the present invention relates to a game machine display testing apparatus for testing the performance of a liquid crystal display apparatus of a pin-ball machine, composing on the display screen a hard copy of an application form to be submitted to a qualification agency (public safety commission), developing or debugging a program, and the like.
2. Description of Related Art
In a pin-ball machine such as a pachinko machine, a display (display apparatus) that is constituted of liquid crystal and the like is installed near the center of the game board. On this display, various characters (such as persons, animals, and the like), the motion of reels, and the like are displayed, showing the state of the game such as hits or misses or the like. These displayed states of the game are combined with effect sounds so as to create a specific atmosphere for the game.
Novelties are always sought after for game machines. Each game machine manufacturer is always trying to develop a game having a new content and updated game choreography. Hence, every time a new type of machine is developed, new pictures, new characters, new combinations, new moves, and the like are developed for a game machine display, for example, a liquid crystal display. At the same time, the corresponding hardware and software are improved or corresponding new hardware and software are developed.
The size of a program that a game machine display controlling CPU executes is restricted to, for example, 4 K bytes by regulations on manufacturing game machines. In manufacturing a conventional game machine, a program area of the conventional game machine has no extra room for accommodating a new program. Therefore, in order to install a new program in the conventional machine, some type of specification change is needed such as discarding the old programs, changing the data structure, or changing the overall specification.
The CPU of the game machine display follows orders supplied from the main control apparatus (main CPU) which controls the main body of the game machine, and forms various types of images such as a frame sequence of a moving picture, screen effects such as fade-in, fade-out, and the like. Therefore, when the specification of the game machine display is changed, the protocol of the game machine display does not match the protocol of the main control apparatus of the main body of the game machine. Thus, when a new liquid crystal display is completed after the specification change, the new liquid crystal display cannot be tested by itself. Conventionally, a main control apparatus based on a new specification also had to be completed in order to test the motions of the characters or the motions of the reels to be displayed on the liquid crystal display, or to conduct other performance tests.
Even if the main control apparatus is completed, the performance of the actual game machine itself is difficult to test. The state of the game installed in the game machine evolves in an unpredictable and random manner. Therefore, the content of the game machine display also changes randomly. For example, even if the characters that appear in the game and the motions of the characters are the same, the pictures of the reels during the game and the final pictures of the reels that are displayed at the end of the game are not predetermined. Thus, standard performance tests for the liquid crystal display of the actual game machine, such as temporarily stopping the display or checking the degree of precision of the motions of the characters or the like by repeating the same motions many times, were difficult to conduct on the actual machines.
In addition, whenever a manufacturer develops a new game machine or changes the specification of a conventional game machine, the manufacturer needs to submit an application form to the qualification agency to have the new game machine or new specification approved. In this case, the manufacturer is required to disclose in detail the content of the display in accordance with the flow of the game. For example, the motions of the characters or reels, and the manners in which hits or misses that result from the motions of the characters or reels are expressed need to be disclosed.
In order to meet this requirement, it is desirable that hard copies of arbitrary scenes that appear on the display screen be obtained. However, it has been difficult to generate on the screen of the actual game machine the above-explained detailed content of the game, which is a combination of various motions of the characters, reels, and the like, in correspondence with the flow of the game. In order to overcome this problem, software or hardware for achieving this objective or a software for using a general purpose in-circuit emulator was conventionally installed on the main control apparatus of the game machine or the liquid crystal display control substrate. In addition, in order to obtain a hard copy of an arbitrary scene shown on the display screen, the image signal of the scene was picked up from the control circuit. The picked-up image signal was then computer-processed, and a corresponding image data was obtained.
It is extremely difficult to confirm the game content of the game machine in accordance with the application document to be submitted to the qualification agency. In addition, it is very hard to read out these random motions from the application document. As a result, it takes an enormous amount of time to understand these random motions. Furthermore, there is no way to predict when these random motions will appear on the display. Therefore, even when the motions of the characters or reels, and the manners in which hits or misses that result from the motions of the characters or reels are expressed needed to be confirmed, they sometimes did not appear immediately.
Thus, a large number of man-hours were needed in order to develop a new main body of the game machine, or a display in accordance with a new specification, and to have the new main body of the game machine or new display specification approved.